I heard a snipit of a news teaser last night.  “Why mothers of 3 are the most stressed out, more after the break”. 

I tune out a lot of background noise, but that one caught my ear.  What?  Surely mothers of 4 or 5 kids are more stressed?  Surely mothers of 8 are borderline insane by the time they get 8 kids through toddler AND teenage years?  What a silly statement. 

So I googled “why mothers of 3 are the most stressed out” and got 192,000,000 results in .22 seconds. 

Well shoot.

Let’s read more…

The increase in stress is the result of being outnumbered for the first time.  

Moms of 3 are still trying to hang on to control, and that perfect parenting that we dream of.

Families with 3 children often have a 2 against 1 imbalance, or even middle kid syndrome.

Meanwhile, mothers of 4 or more have reached a level of trust and comfort in their parenting.  

They have also relaxed on matters they have realized aren’t as important.

And the kids generally each have an automatic playmate.

There’s more if you’re interested in reading more on today.com, or any number of other articles that are providing commentary on it. 

Nonetheless, the takeaway here is clear.

We should have more kids.  It will be less stressful.  😉